— Steve Wilhite, speaking to the New York Times about receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Webby Awards for his work on the GIF image file format.

The pronunciation of “GIF” has been a hot-button topic for almost as long as the format has been around. Wilhite wants a soft G, while many of us just can’t seem to let our minds convince our mouths to play along.

Fun fact: the prototype GIF that Wilhite produced in 1987 was a picture of an airplane. Today, animated GIFs are far more common than standard GIFs, though Wilhite told the Times that he’s never actually cobbled an animated GIF together. The dancing baby GIF from the mid-’90s is his favorite — and is arguably the most well-known animated GIF.